After England,[171] the United States and France took lead in employing women as factory inspectors--an innovation that has become all the more necessary because, as has been shown, the number of women in industry is rapidly increasing, and the industries employing women, chiefly or exclusively, are increasing likewise--a number of German states have also followed their example. Baden, Bavaria, Hessia, the Kingdom of Saxony, Weimar, Wurtemberg, and others have added women assistants to their factory inspectors, and some of these have already achieved much recognition by their activity. In Prussia there are three women factory inspectors in Berlin, and one each in Duesseldorf, Breslau and Wiesbaden. This proves again how the progress of Prussia has been retarded compared with other German states. There is not a single woman assistant in districts like Potsdam (with 32,299 working women), Frankfort on the Oder (with 31,371), Liegnitz (with 31,798), and others, where their presence is extremely needful. Here, too, it has been seen that working women confide more readily in members of their own sex, and that female factory inspectors have been able to obtain much information that was denied to their male colleagues. One shortcoming of this institution is that the assistants frequently are not given the autonomy that is needful in their position, and their pay is not what it ought to be, either. The new institution is being tried out carefully and hesitatingly.[172] In Germany the prejudice and aversion against employing women in public offices is particularly strong, because so many retired military men annually seek appointments to all kinds of offices in the state and municipal administrations, that there is hardly any room left for applicants from other circles. When women are employed, nevertheless, their salary is considerably lower, whereby they immediately appear as being worth less than men, and whereby they also become a means to keep down wages and salaries.